My crummy, crummy laptop
June 26th, 2006 @ 20:40 by NormMonkey
From the laptop-from-hell department:
Have you met my laptop? I think it is time for a laptop haiku:
Oh laptop
Your charging circuit is blown
And you weigh too much
Now it is time for a story. I do not know where my contractions have gone. Turn on your imagination and hand it over to me for a minute or two.
Relax.
Breathe slowly.
Close your eyes. Oh, shit, wait, nevermind. Uh… let your senses float like a leaf in the wind.
Imagine you are tired. It has been a long day and you are thinking about bed. Bed is comfy. Bed is soft, smooth. Cool sheets on a warm night. The cat knows. He paws at you, “Come to bed.”
[Ever watch Star Trek: TNG? Remember the red alert hoot? Keep that sound in mind for a minute]
You lie in bed. Soft, cool sheets cover you. A breeze from the fan soothes you. Your eyelids close as pleasant thou…
WOOOOOOP!!!!
What the f…? Romulans in my bedroom? Tasha wha…? Dip me in honey and thruhuwha?
Waitaminit! That’s the fucking LAPTOP making that bloody noise! WTF time is it?!?
02h00. Bloody hell.
Fumble out of bed. Stumble downstairs. Bumble over to the couch.
You are in a living room. It is bloody dark outside. You have been rudely awakened. The object of your wrath sits before you.
> look object of wrath
Before you is a monster-sized laptop. Its blue lid is closed. The most awful racket emanates from its surprisingly loud speakers three times a minute. On the size there is one amber LED. On the front there are two green ones lit in a line of three.
> look green LEDs
There are three LEDs. Left to right you see: (1) a plug icon indicating presence of A/C power. This light is on; (2) a power icon, lit, indicating that the laptop is turned on; (3) a battery icon, indicating the status of the battery. This light is off.
> WTF?!
In normal laptop operation there is no way for this condition to occur. When on A/C power, the A/C light is green and the battery light is either amber (charging) or green (fully charged). The power light can be either on or off, but the battery light is always on when the A/C adapter is present.
WITHOUT the A/C adapter, either all three lights are off (powered down laptop) or the power light is on and the battery light is (1) off, indicating sufficient charge; (2) amber, indicating low charge; (3) flashing amber, indicating imminent death.
Speaking of the laptop’s imminent death, back to our adventure.
> kick laptop
You stretch your leg back, wind up and have at the laptop with all your might. Moments later you are forced to recall three important facts: (1) you just crawled out of bed, having experienced slumber interruptus courtesy of your steaming, fetid piece of shit laptop; (2) as such there is nothing covering your feet; (3) your steaming, fetid POS laptop resembles a brick in every way except colour, size (it is larger than a brick) and weight (it is heavier).
The toes on your feet do a surprisingly accurate impersonation of your thumb after having just been whacked by a hammer.
> inventory
You are wearing what you normally wear to bed, offering few storage options. On your wrist is your watch, reminding you of this most inappropriate hour. In your hands is a Romulan battle outfit complete with disruptor which somehow crossed into reality from your dream, where you and Tasha … were … in the moments just after that bloody laptop started screaming. Tasha, back in your dream, must be cold and lonely.
> set disruptor to max power and fire point-blank into laptop
You have the immense satisfaction of seeing parts of your laptop melt a little before it is completely vaporized by the blast from the disruptor. The hole in your floor extends through the basement and into the ground below. A worm pokes its head through and looks at you with arrogance.
Yeah, OK we’d better end this adventure here before things get out of hand.
AZROLB: Yeah, like *that* hasn’t happened already.
Wassat? You hear something? The invisible shadow of a sound passes by your ear, barely failing to brush your consciousness.
Quickly, here’s what’s new before I sign off for the evening:
(1) Last weekend was a metric happening of fun. An all-day pool party on Saturday ended around midnight. On Sunday I helped good friends P&M do some work around their house, followed by Adventures In House-Scouting™ and then an evening of fire-cooked meat and yummy, yummy salad from the culinarily-talented hands of M.
(2) I have finally finished reading the series of books I was working on. As such I am emerging, renewed, into the light of reality, no longer to rush home and absorb pages of literary entertainment. Prepare for an increase in frequency of blog posts. Also, an increase in frequency of cross-offs on the list which literally covers a half-sheet of paper describing a bunch of stuff that I need to do around my house.
(3) The housework has started this evening with the elimination of weeds from between the patio stones in my backyard. I used the classic yoink-with-the-Mark-I-hand method (albeit with gloves — those bastard weeds are prickly) followed by the more modern pressure-washer-between-the-cracks method. Those stones never looked so clean.
Remaining on that particular project, to be finished on the next rain-free evening hopefully this week, are (a) pulling out the final (surprisingly large and prickly) weeds from around the last patio stones; (b) pressure-washing all garbage and recycling cans, car mats, kitty-litter trays, boot-mats and anything else that needs a pressure-washing before I tuck what I call the Yellow DeathSquirt 4000™ back into its home in the shed; and (c) attaching the tent-thingy cover after finishing the sewing-together of the corner which got ripped in the last heavy windstorm.
(4) I have ordered a new laptop for myself, as this “I think I shall ignore the whole keep-batteries-charged idea” attitude that my laptop has recently taken to is becoming more frequent. Thus far there have been two dead-of-night awakenings, one mid-day death-style failure (and I can tell exactly when ’cause I was trying to use my laptop remotely from work at the time, doh), and a handful of failures that have happened while I actually have the thing on my lap (which I can correct when I notice them).
I can’t seem to tell what is causing this piece of shit to do this. It’s not heat, because most days it stays on all day even during the warmest parts. It does seem to happen more frequently when I use it on my lap, but it has also failed mid-afternoon completely un-attended, and twice at night, also completely un-attended. Perhaps this whole thing is a plot by the cats to make me get a new laptop so they can use this one for their online gambling and kitty porn habits.
If so they’ll be sorely disappointed ’cause I’m just gonna stick this puppy downstairs near the projector, where it will be off most of the time but shall come in handy every once in awhile for gaming or whatever.
Now, before this blog can get any more boring (AZROLB: Yeah, like *that* could happen.) I shall sign off. AZROLB, be warned that I still have Tasha’s disruptor over here….
[PING BACK] Let’s jump back in time about a year when I first told you about my crummy, crummy laptop. For those playing along at home who’re too lazy to follow hyperlinks (it’s, like, sooo hard!), my old Toshiba laptop decided electricity was more of a snack than a main course […]